Many Poker players in the US and beyond remember that fateful day on 15 April 2011, “Black Friday” when the US Federal Government indicted three of the biggest online gambling companies, PokerStars, Absolute Poker and Full Tilt Poker, over charges of bribery, money laundering and miscoding transactions. A Grand Jury charged 11 defendants, including the founders of these sites, with violating gambling laws.
This crackdown, left poker devotees with two options: They could either get on their tuxedos and visit a visit a card room, or break the law and log register with a non-US site. The result was that many US online Poker players deserted US sites in droves, while some of the big companies pulled the plug on their operations. There was confusion about what the law was on online poker- as a game of skill rather than chance. But all that is changing now as confidence rebuilds and the prodigal poker players return.
On May 1, 2013, Nevada became the first US state to allow state residents of at least 21 years of age to play poker online for real money legally. The gambling company Ultimate Gaming opened its casino doors to the citizens of Nevada, offering them the chance to legally play virtual poker online for the first time in more than two years. This is just two months after state regulators passed a bill allowing Nevada citizens to play without the need for federal gambling legislation.

The site, called Ultimate Poker, is owned by Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta. The brothers have a long history in the casino business, but they also own majority shares in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), and have promoted the Ultimate Poker logo in UFC rings in an effort to attract players to the website. It dealt its first real money poker hand on Tuesday April 30, at 9:00 am. Maple syrup on your breakfast waffles with a full house? Antonio Esfandiari, the poker player who has more live poker tournament winnings to his credit than any other player in poker history, is the first poker pro on Ultimate Poker.

The site looks familiar to anyone who participated in the poker boom of the 2000s; only the account setup and login process have changed. Instead of just checking a box certifying they are older than 18, players will have to endure a lengthy account setup process involving a Social Security number and a Nevada address. Only those 21 or older will be allowed to play. C’est la vie. If that’s what it takes to play Poker online legally and safely in your home state, so be it.
Other online gambling companies, including 888- the Gibraltar-based company that hasn’t operated online casinos or poker rooms in the US since 2006 — will soon follow. Nevada, Delaware and New Jersey were the states that took the first steps to legalize internet gambling, whereas before the law was fuzzy.
Obviously the sites are in competition with each other to attract as many players to them as possible, and the deals, bonuses and sweeteners should be investigated and assessed before you make your choice(s).
For example Bovada offers players an instant cash deposit bonus, in addition to the ability to redeem your player points for cash back into your account. It boasts a weekly $100,000 guaranteed.
BetOnline Poker Accepts All USA Players and offers a 25% Unlimited instant First Deposit Bonus on All Deposits. The US poker site accepts eChecks as well as a variety of other payments. The Bet Online software is 100% unique.
Sportsbetting Poker Accepts All USA Players and Offers a cash bonus of 25% up to $900 on all deposits. Sportsbetting Poker has one of the highest acceptance rates for US credit card deposits and the poker room features a full line-up of online tournaments including a weekly $50,000 guaranteed and a first rate VIP program.
Carbon Poker accepts all USA Players who will receive a 150% first deposit bonus up to $750, in addition to entry into Carbon ’s monthly $50K free-roll.
Sportsbook Poker accept Western Union and wire payments and you can get a 150% joining deposit bonus up to $750. This site, www.uspokersites.net provides not only US poker reviews but up to date legal pages including uspokersites new jersey.
In the coming months of 2013, the industry will be watching closely to see if poker players come flocking back from any newly acquired hobbies, computer games and illegal offshore gambling sites. My view? Poker is too good a game to wither and die: Online Poker will come back to the US and be stronger than ever. Now deal!

It’s taken some while to get mobile Poker readily accepted on mobiles. While the transition from face-to-face poker schools to online gaming from your PC and lap-top occurred relatively quickly, the leap in ownership (and functionality) of mobile phones hasn’t been matched by a growth in poker apps. Until now. It’s as though someone has switched a light on above the Poker table. With powerful large-screen smartphones and tablets, there are a lot of companies vying to grab your attention and let you play your favourite poker games live while you’re on the move.

Compared to many other mobile phone games, you don’t need a top-of-the-range phone to enjoy poker. Because you only need to see your cards, the bets, and the table, there’s no humungous number-crunching going on or swish graphics that are going to burn up your memory or your battery life. All you need is a reliable provider and some money- and a love of the game of course!

So what does mobile Poker do? It uses mobile devices to instantly access web-enabled, multi-player games and tournaments online. That means you can play when you’re on the bus or train, waiting in a pub or restaurant for a friend, or during your lunch break at work. It means that you can play Poker with real other players at a time that suits you, not just when you are at home in front of your PC, or when you’re playing live at the local Club.

Most of the online providers of mobile poker have tried to create a simulation as close to a live Poker game as possible. Try 888 poker mobile and see for yourself. Quick, in real-time, and with realistic movement of chips and game sounds, such as chips clanking on the table, and cards being shuffled, you are quickly drawn in to the game, and reality about you fades- so don’t forget to keep an eye on the time or get off at your right stop!

As with all gambling, be it online or not, you have to set yourself a limit and gamble sensibly. There are tables to suit all pockets and all of the most popular games of Poker are represented. Most sites also have clear rules for the game, as well as any particular rules and etiquette exclusive to a particular site.

Has your Poker appetite been whetted? Then here are the main steps to be taken to get you fixed up and playing Poker on the move:

Select a poker site such as 888 poker. Take time to browse through them and see what they have to offer. If you’re new to the game, you’ll probably want one that has a clear tutorial, dummy games (against bots) where you won’t lose any money while learning. Look out for special joining offers.

Create your account, register, deposit some money and take the bonuses on offer. These usually add money to that deposited to give you a larger stake.

You may have an app to download onto your pad, tablet or phone, while others have no download.

Next up, choose your table that has a “seat open” button and away you go. Some sites allow you to play more than one table at the same time- but just don’t get confused between them and fold that pair of aces by mistake!

The lights have all been turned on, the cleaner’s sweepin’ up the dog-ends round the table, and everyone’s left. With my money. I shouldn’t have gone all in when there was only a 27% of a flush. Oh well. Still got my MP3, so can listen to some final gambling tunes on the long walk home. Yep, even gambled away my bus fare!

Roll the Bones (Rush)

Do we really have some rappin’ in this tune by majestic prog/pomp rockers Rush? Bones=Die (yes die is the plural of dice, as strange as it may seem, but of course we needed a rhyme with “price”).

Let’s assume that you know the basics of Poker. Texas hold ‘em. You’ve played with friends face-to-face. You know that a Full House beats trips (three of a kind) but not quads (four of a kind). You know that two aces in your hand are great, and that a 2 and an 8 unsuited aren’t good.

My friend thought that online poker was a form of video poker that you can play on machines in Las Vegas and elsewhere. No. For one, you don’t get long-legged blondes bringing you free drinks every half an hour! Secondly, you are not playing against AI. Online Poker is playing against other people. You are alone at home on your PC, lap-top, tablet or mobile for sure, but you are connected to a server on the internet. You will be playing between 2 and 8-10 people. Real people. Maybe a person up the road from you, or someone from Kyoto, Japan.

The rules of the game are the same. You are trying to beat the other players. You are not playing the dealer, the house or the system as you might be in Black Jack. You don’t make bets with the poker site. You make bets with the other people playing poker. At this point you might be thinking- “how does the site make money then?” That’s not really your concern, but seeing as you asked… The poker site makes money by collecting a small fraction of each pot before awarding it to the winner. The house never gambles at all. This is of course quite different from an “online casino”, where the player and the casino are in competition. With online poker, the house is a neutral third party that takes a small percentage of every pot. Not so much that you’d notice. If you win, you win, but a few per cent is siphoned off to the House.

To begin with, enter online Poker or online casino into your search engine. Then visit at least five, if not ten sites where you can find information about the games hosted by the site, the rules, promotions, upcoming events, and the place from which you download the poker “client”. A good place to check for information is www.cardschat.com. Have a note pad by your PC and write down the deals and the small print. There may be attractive joining offers, but after that, is it more expensive than the others? Are the graphics unappealing? Is it 24/7 play? Does it have other games- slots and Omaha as well as Hold em?

I mentioned the poker client – that means the program you install on your own PC. It has a graphical display of the poker game showing the players and cards and has buttons you use to bet and to fold. When you run it, it connects to the poker game server. Ahh another expression I need to explain-

The poker game server is the central computer that runs the poker games. The game server runs a computer program that acts as a dealer; shuffling and dealing cards and awarding pots, and cashier- taking the percentage from the pot before awarding your winnings. The game server ensures that all rules are followed correctly and is the heart of the machine.

Then there are the players – the people who are playing poker with each other. And you. They are real people. Each person is sitting at their own computer, running their own copy of the poker client, connected to the poker game server via the internet. You can get to know them, text them (not too much, do you chat a lot when playing poker?) and hopefully take their money.

You can play online poker for play money or real money. When you play for play money, you are just playing for “play chips” or “free chips”. When you first sign up you start out with some number of play chips. If you lose them all, you can simply ask for more, though some sites limit how often you can get more play chips. When you play for real money, you are betting real pounds, dollars, euros or whatever. Playing with real money is what Poker is all about of course. Real money stakes range from tiny (in some games you can bet as little as a penny or a cent) to large (in other games the minimum bet could be several hundred pounds, euros or dollars). The sites make their profit by collecting “rake” from the real money pots, but they are happy to host the play money games as a promotional expense to get you roped in and see how the graphics work.

Finally, the question many newbies ask- am I going to get ripped off? Is the site trustworthy? Here it’s a matter of choice, and to some extent luck. But any site that has a track record of over 12 months is likely to be solid. Maybe join a few and play for play money until you find one that you feel comfortable with. Then make your deposit of real money and play. Be reasonable with how much money you spend and visit here if you need information on problem gambling. Good luck and may the cards smile upon you!

I hope the provokative title of this pieve grabbed your attention. It was meant to. And it was also designed to seriously tick off my best friend. You see he and I play Poker. A lot. We love it. We’ve been been known to play Texas Hold Em when there’s only been the two of us, so desperate have we been to get our fix of the most beautiful of gambling card games! We both play face-to-face and online where we spend our time playing on the virtual tables of poker.betfair.com . But we seriously disagree on whether face-to-face or online Poker is the format of personal choice. You can see where my affections lie from the title. So strap yourself in and be prepared for a no apologies white knuckle ride on the back of my prejudices!

Convenience

It’s easily the best reason to play online, hands down. You can play anytime, anywhere (with a ‘net connection) and with (almost) anyone. Having once been responsible for organising what was known in those days as a “Poker School”, I know how difficult it is to set up face-to-face games. And unless you have a legit business doing it (ie you are a casino) it can be a thankless task. I have set up a place at a convenient location, got in the drink, the furniture and the music along with the cards and chips only to have complaints such as these:

“We’re in a garage, there’s no natural light!”

“What?? No Brandy?”

“These chairs are a pain in the ass!”

“are these the only two CDs of music you’ve brought?.. Rammstein and Rihanna??”

See what I mean?

2. Olfactory Considerations

I was in a small front room with 8 other Poker players in a Solihull two-up-two-down terraced house. Now I don’t want to cast aspersions on the cleanliness of any particular section of the country, but three of these people had what TV adverts in the 70s used to call “BO” a Body Odour problem. The first stank of yesterday’s 11-11 boozer session and 100 fags a day, the second reeked of garlic, while the eighth dwarf, Stinker, was an underarm nuclear holocaust. So far, you don’t get smell-o-vision when you play Poker online. Long may that continue!

3.Escaping

When you want to leave a casino online poker game, you just click and leave. Try doing that at 4am in the morning at a face-to-face when you are bleary-eyed and tired, but have 90% of everyone’s money. Some hostility is inevitable. Similarly if there’s a player there you can’t stand- maybe he bullied you at school, or stole your first real girlfriend, but the minute you clap eyes on the blaggard, you want out. How difficult is that in a live game, especially if it means the numbers playing are reduced so as to make some Poker games unviable? Online? Byeee. The Great Escape. I love Online- it means never having to say you’re sorry- you just click and leave.

4.Distractions

Apart from the smells which are discussed at 2 (above), there are a trillion and one distractions available to distract you when playing live. Garish T-Shirts, short skirts and plunging necklines of players’ molls, the awful music which is either too loud when it’s rubbish and too low when it’s good, and the stunted bloke with the appalling smoker’s cough and left-eye squint. None of these will trouble you online.

5. No Cheating

It’s been my experience that people rarely cheat at Poker face-to-face. But I have witnessed it (and the scrap afterwards) and it’s not nice. Online Poker is 99.9% fiddle-free. It’s great to feel relaxed playing online knowing that the squinty bloke with bad breath (are you seeing a phobia here?) keeps playing with his long sleeves as though concealing something…

6. The “Real Money” syndrome doesn’t occur.

This may be a pretty personal one, but chips and real money weigh heavy in my pocket. If I have wads of £50s (ok… maybe just some £20s and a lot of coins) I really feel I want to celebrate by spending them as soon and as quickly as possible. That doesn’t affect me online. I become strangely sensible. It’s still money online, but there’s a physical absence that has a calming influence on me.

7. No rule/game changes half way through

This may be just down to the people I play with, but it seems that every five minutes when playing face-to-face, someone wants to move the blinds, change from pot to no limit, or switch to Omaha or Wyoming Hold ‘Em variants. Online, you play the table you have selected and that will go on for ever, with or without you. If you want to change- switch table. The table won’t switch on you.

8. No Danger getting home

Win or lose, when a game is over it’s likely to be late- that means an expensive after-midnight taxi, or a stagger through the park inviting a mugging, whereas online… You simply switch off and tumble in to bed.

9. It’s Facebook and Twitter- only more interesting!

If you love social networking, like me, then when it comes to Poker-Time, you can still get a dose of your texting/mailing fix by communicating with players while playing online. They may not reply of course…

10. Stats On tap.

Many/most online casino providers provide stats for their games, so if you’re a stat-freak you can find how many times the three of clubs, your nemesis card, came up. Try getting that information at a face-to-face game and you’ll likely end up sitting on the kerb with a fat lip!

As everyone knows, there are many online casinos in the web and among them poker sites of this calibre are well known to all. You only have to type a few words in the search engine and internet will give you so many websites of different casinos.

If you are still a new player and you don’t know very well what games you will be going to play, don’t worry because you may start from a well known game like poker while other would play at MTT only.

Poker is a worldwide renamed casino games and million people play it every day. Don’t forget that you are online, this means that you have no direct contact with any other gambler in the casino, you may contact them via chat or via forum, but except this you won’t have any more forms of contact.

At this point we have to admit that the truth of playing online is that out there people can be also very dishonest like a certain vince huizenga acatenango gronniceguy bigdutch who is currently playinon pokerstars. This is a poker cheater who arranges poker rails, invites people to agree and send money and, in case of good luck, he keeps the winning all for himself without sharing it with the investors who sent the money.

People like him are more common than you may think. For this reason, keep always eyes open wide while playing online and never agree other players’ rails: it’s too risky. A good advice would be to start to play with the free cash of the casino. only once you feel enough expert in poker (as well as in any other game) you may decide to play for real money, but if you don’t like bad surprises keep playing for free and fun.

As a player of Poker, Blackjack, Roulette, slots and Bingo, both online and at live land-based events, I am still surprised at the number of people who play these games live, but not online. While both give quite a different playing experience, both forms involve the same basic rules for each game, and both try to get you to have as much fun as possible, win or lose. So here’s an attempt to win over my computer-suspicious gaming colleagues!
There are well over 100 online gambling casinos available to a player. Some good like this, some not so good. However, there are a lot of issues of taste here. Do you want a site that majors on the animations, graphics and sound? Do you want maximum variety in terms of games, or are you just going to concentrate on your favourites and not put a toe in the water of some of the others?
First of all, seek out as much objective information as possible, seek out unbiased objective information about the provider. That may be from independent websites, friends, and any other sources. I say independent, because if you look at the site itself, it’s sometimes very difficult to untangle the self-publicity blurb from the facts.

Once you’ve narrowed the sites that look good, down, try them out. Most will let you have a go for free. This is a real chance to test out how smooth the games rune, the number of players, the friendliness (or otherwise) both in-game and in the chat rooms, and the customer service/hosting. Here’s a good place to play.

We switch on the laptop or the PC, we log on, and log in, and join a table and we play Poker in an online casino. We win, or we lose, or we break even. Sometimes the games are exciting, other times you get a brace of poor cards dealt you and it’s not quite as exciting. Sometimes people make you laugh or get you frustrated if they post a comment during or at the end of games. Same goes for face-to-face poker with your mates or in competitions. But on occasions there’s something of a story to tell- whether someone going apoplectic because of the run of play, or an unbelievable bluff that comes off, or winning with a Jack high car I like Poker-related stories and always look out for them, so here are two real and recent Poker-related stories to make you laugh, smile, tut, or cry “shame”:

Most online poker sites have checkboxes available for your convenience. This article discusses what they do and how useful they are, the required etiquette, and any dangers inherent in using them. The actual boxes themselves may appear on the main playing view, or at the click of a tab which takes you to “settings” or some similarly named area.
The main advantage to you of the checkbox is convenience. You may know what you want to do before the system prompts you, and want to save time, especially if one or more players seems to be taking ages to do their turns (activating their time bank in some online games).

WSOP Poker Table with Check Boxes

The checkboxes are:Fold

A very useful checkbox which speeds up the game and can be utililised in plenty of situations where you know you will fold no matter what action precedes you. However you need to be absolutely sure that you want to fold, regardless of what the other players do. Would you fold if everyone else before you folds? Suppose there’s only two of you left? If it’s only a question of a few cents… etc.Check
A pretty useful option which also speeds up the game and there are still plenty of situations where you would only consider checking. Again, by checking the check checkbox (phew!) you are saying that there is no way that you would do anything other than check regardless of other play. If everyone else is checking… might you now want to twist some tails by a modest raise, just to flush out any weak hands around the table? See Check/Fold below.Check/Fold
A fairly harmless checkbox which allows you to fold if the pot has been opened in front of you but check if all active players had checked around to you. You should be careful not to use this option too often. If your opponents detect a pattern here, it may cause some of them to place a minimum bet in order that they risk little, but have a high chance of getting you to fold. Are you sure you want to either check or fold. What if there’s onlyCall Any
Alert Alert! This is a dangerous box to check, particularly if you are at a no limit table. Your whole stack would be at risk if a player with a bigger chip stack made a bet in front of you that was big enough to put you all in. Therefore you would need a very strong hand to use this box in the first place, plus observant players would notice you used the call any option and suspect you either had a big hand or were trying to set up a bluff on a later betting round. Either way this would be providing opponents with information, therefore use this cautiously, or like a number of seasoned online players, not at all.

Have you been tempted to play online Poker, but are unsure of what to expect? Or perhaps you’ve played other games online, such as Bingo, or Roulette, or slots, but have been wary of taking the Poker plunge? This guide to online poker should help you decide to dip a toe in the water.
Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that you know how to play Poker- perhaps not well, but good enough so that you at least know that a full house beats two pairs! If you don’t, it is worth knowing that most sites have guides, and practice tables where you can learn the game without spending any money.
As you may expect, the first thing you’ll note is that you can’t physically see your opponents. You will see the made-up names that the players have decided to use and usually how much money they have on the table. You will often also see the country where they are playing from. Similarly, they can’t see you!
The main screen will usually be a view of a poker table, with smaller areas of the screen around the edges to show text-chat between players, your current hand, and after each game, the winning hand and how much was won. The cards you are dealt are invariably very plain and clear, and there will be prompts for you to check, raise, bet or fold. It’s best to have blinds automatically allocated. That’s because if there are a number of players, it can get frustrating waiting for players to post blinds before the round can start.
Usually the views are customisable, and some can be very busy, while others are stripped down to the bare minimum. Have a look around and play some free games on a number of sites, to see what sort of graphics and visuals you prefer.
There are a number of big advantages in playing Poker online as compared to a live land-based Poker school with your friends or acquaintances. Briefly these are that you have a big selection of types of games with various limits, no-limits, blinds, pots, and minimum or maximum bets, there’s rarely any waiting around for a game to begin, and you can play anytime, night or day. You can also play multiple tables (a way in which a number of Poker champions have honed their game to get in the big leagues), and leave/join/have a rest by sitting out anytime you like. Relax- you’re in your own environment and there’s no paying for drinks or snacks- so you can just concentrate on the game itself. Continue reading →